


The scars that silence carved on me

by SkyScribbles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassination Attempt(s), Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Eiselcross (Critical Role), Fantasy Religion, Gen, Mentions of Shadowgast, Panic Attacks, Some Vurmas Outpost NPCs but they don't play a major role, or at least a hopeful ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29861058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyScribbles/pseuds/SkyScribbles
Summary: The Mighty Nein erupt into Essek's life, teach him to love them - and then leave him behind. As the weeks pass, and the people who changed him do not return, Essek learns to change himself.(Or: five things that change in Essek Thelyss after he parts ways with the Mighty Nein, and one thing that doesn't.)
Relationships: Essek Thelyss & The Mighty Nein, Essek Thelyss & Uraya, Essek Thelyss & Verin Thelyss
Comments: 36
Kudos: 150





	The scars that silence carved on me

**Author's Note:**

> 124 blew all my expectations about Essek's development out of the water in the best possible way, and I felt compelled to write about his growth between the peace talks and his reunion with the Nein. So here it is!
> 
> CW: Aside from what's in the tags, Essek very frequently strays into the fatalistic, living-on-borrowed-time headspace he had in ep 124.

**i.**

**he reaches out**

They run out of small talk after ten minutes, and they have never been the kind of brothers between whom silence is comfortable.

Essek summons his mage hand and pours more wine, letting the splash of liquid fill the quiet as it fills their glasses. Verin nods his thanks. Picks up his glass. Then puts it back down on the table without sipping, the movement firm enough that Essek almost flinches.

‘All right, Essek,' he says. 'What’s this about?’

The mage hand flickers in the air between them. Essek looks away.

It doesn’t surprise him that Verin feels the need to ask. This is how things work in their family, their Den, their nation: every polite smile hides teeth. Every glass of wine and lavish meal is calculated to grease one’s lips, to make it easier for the words _I will do you a favour_ to slip out. All the same, it’s a sting to be reminded that Essek can invite his little brother over for dinner, have the Unseen Servants make Verin’s favourite slow-roasted spider, and pour the same wine they once drank together to celebrate Verin’s appointment as Taskhand – and Verin’s instinct is to see it as a butter-up, not a kindness.

Essek doesn’t blame him. This kind of suspicion is what has kept them both alive; he’d think the same, in Verin’s situation. It hurts anyway.

He banishes his mage hand and takes a slow sip of his wine. ‘I’ve requested a new assignment,’ he says. ‘In Eiselcross.’

Another silence, deeper than before. Verin blinks, stares, seems to wait for Essek to reveal the joke, then leans forward a little. ‘You _what?’_

‘Requested a new assignment in Eiselcross, as the overseer of a research outpost. And was granted the position. I leave in four days.’

Verin shakes his head. ‘We _are_ talking about the same Eiselcross, here? Distant north, riddled with wild magics, teeming with yetis and white dragons, cold as all fuck? That Eiselcross?’

‘That would be it, yes.’

‘I –’ Verin makes a strained sound that might be an attempt at a laugh. ‘I hope you realise that this is a little like hearing that Mother has decided to retire from politics and spend her days reclining on the Menagerie Coast.’

‘Mother wouldn’t settle for the Coast. She’d go to Marquet at the very least. A pleasant resort on the Bay of Gifts.’

Verin’s lips twitch slightly, but his eyebrows are still raised to improbable heights.

Essek sighs, and takes a few more gulps of wine. ‘I know it’s a surprise. It’s not somewhere I thought I would want to be even a year ago.’ _And I don’t want to be there now. But I have to go, if I wish to avoid making you hear the news that I have been found murdered –_

No. This is a lie, even if it’s a silent one, and Essek is tired of lies. He _does_ want to go. He wants to be away from Rosohna, and not only for safety’s sake. The fact is: Essek is desperate for distance. Distance from politics and judging eyes. Distance from the things he’s done. Distance from the person that a hundred years in Rosohna made him.

He cannot say any of this to Verin, of course. So he says, ‘With the war over, my skills are less needed here. The potentials of Eiselcross have been in the back of my mind for a long time. Now, I have the chance to pursue them.’ He forces a grin. ‘You know I find it hard to resist a possibility.’

‘I do. I also know that you’ve lived in your nice cosy tower for decades. I know that you hate the cold, getting rained or snowed on, the outdoors – any kind of discomfort, really.’

Essek snorts, and smiles. ‘You’re not wrong.’

Another quiet. Verin takes a swig of his wine, then leans back in his seat, arms folded. ‘All right. You’re going to the north. So what is it you need from me? A favour? Is there someone under my command you want transferred to yours?’

‘No.’ There’s more frustration behind the word than Essek intended. Not with his brother, but with the place and people around them, who have taught them both to survive on favours-for-favours and to be bewildered by anything kinder. He picks up his glass, and realises that he’s already emptied it. ‘It affects you only in that I am going somewhere, as you say, infested with dragons and yetis and wild magic, and I may not return for some time.’ He cannot look at Verin’s face. ‘Or, perhaps, at all.’

Which is the real reason he asked Verin here. There is a substantial possibility that he will die in the snow of these islands, whether under a yeti’s claws or a Scourger’s blade – and he doesn’t want to walk into that possibility without speaking to someone. Someone who would give a damn about the idea of him not coming home.

He forces himself to look up. Verin has gone very still. The look on his face is one that Essek has seen before, one that makes his insides lurch with a remembered pain. It is the look that was on Verin's face when their mother told them both that she'd had news from Bazzoxan, and her voice shuddered in a way neither of them had heard before. It is the look of a man anticipating grief.

‘Is this a goodbye?’ Verin says, very quietly.

Essek swallows. ‘This is me wanting to see you before I leave. Not a goodbye, I hope.’

Silence, again. Essek watches his brother process in a soldier's manner: silently, quickly, giving nothing of his thoughts away. After a few moments, Verin breathes out and looks up. ‘So you’re going to be in command. Is anyone going with you whom you know?

‘I’m taking Starguide Uraya with me. I wanted a friend, for this.’

Surprise flickers over Verin's face. Understandable; Essek has avoided calling Uraya that for years. He has no good reason for having done so, except that it never felt safe. But the Mighty Nein have taught him a great many lessons about recklessness.

‘So except for one person, you're taking over a command full of strangers. Don’t take this the wrong way, Essek, but… you’re not a man I usually associate with teamwork and communication. Especially with people you don't know.’

‘So I’m aware. If you have any advice, I am all ears.’

Verin blinks, as if he didn’t expect Essek to admit to this. Or perhaps he did not expect Essek to welcome his advice. ‘Well, as one commander of a force stationed in the ass-end of nowhere to another… be competent. Just be good at your job and give your men some certainty. That won’t be a problem for you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t try to be their friends, or they’ll think you’re insecure and trying to suck up, but... that won’t be a problem for you either. And this is the hard part: make sure they know that you don’t see them as disposable, but come to terms with the fact that you’re going to lose some of them.’

Essek nods. It is still hard to picture Vurmas Outpost as an actual location inhabited by living people, and not simply his hopefully-Scourger-free bolthole. But he knows it will become more real once he’s there, and that the people whose lives he'll be responsible for will become real too. ‘I appreciate it, Verin.’

They finish the meal in silence. Then the servants bring out the keltaly dessert, and Verin pours half a jar of honey over it like he did when he was a child. He talks about Bazzoxan, and wonders aloud which of them has been stationed in the more hellish place. He speaks of some of the more ridiculous things his men have been up to – which he’s done before, except this time he peppers it with grins and _this is what you have to look forward to._

For the first time, Essek feels like his brother’s stories aren’t about a world that Essek doesn’t know and doesn’t care about. It feels like something they’re sharing. 

The evening draws to a close. Verin stops in the doorway as he leaves, giving Essek a long, steady look. ‘Go prepared, Essek,’ he says. ‘Be safe. Come back.’

The implication hangs between them: _don't do what our father did. Don't die for the sake of pride. Don't abandon me._

None of those are promises that Essek can make. 

‘You as well, Verin,’ Essek says, and takes his brother’s hand.

* * *

**ii.**

**he cries**

The spell deposits him in the snow with one last tearing punch to his insides, and Essek rolls over the ground in a cloak-limb tangle before lying still.

Then his mind fuzzes into order and registers the cold bite of snow against his face. Essek hauls himself onto his knees, then to his feet, then to his float. He moves too fast. His vision greys out, and he hovers with his arms wrapped around his chest until he can see again.

He is not in Vurmas Outpost. He knew that already, from the absence of Aurora Watch shouting his title and coming to scoop him up, but looking up makes it clear just how far from the outpost he’s been flung. The snow around him is a flat field, unbroken by mountains, or by the ice spires that surround Aeor’s buried resting place. The sky is overcast, but the clouds to the west are red-shadowed. Nightfall will come soon.

Which is a problem, because if Eiselcross days are dangerous, Eiselcross nights are a near-death sentence, and Essek _hurts._ Every inch of his skin burns and every part of his skull pounds. Essek has been through translocation mishaps before, but this – this is not a mishap. This is a mauling.

His lips are wet. Essek fumbles a hand to them, and his glove comes away stained crimson. There’s a ribbon of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth - and more, he realises, is welling behind his lips. He sputters it onto the snow.

Shelter. He needs to make or find shelter, and rest.

In theory, he could try teleporting to Vurmas again. In practice, another failed attempt could kill him. In theory, too, he could throw up a Tiny Hut spell right now. But even if he tries to make it blend with the snow, it will stand out: a dome on a flat plain, on a night with a clear sky. It would be like flying a banner saying _kill your semi-conscious wizard here._

Essek spits out a laugh. He’s becoming tired of being always an inch from death.

He needs to find something that could conceal a conjured dome. An ice spire, a hillside. Anything. And that means ignoring his bone-deep ache, and moving. Essek tugs his cloak tight around his neck, picks a direction at random, and floats toward the skyline.

It’s a half-hour before he finds something: an outcrop of rock big enough to hide a Hut spell from view. There’s no time for ritual casting; Essek’s shivering so fiercely that it’s a struggle to maintain his float. He sacrifices some of his last dregs of energy to throw the hut up immediately, and the warmth hits so fast that he flinches.

Essek waits, hovering in the centre of the dome, until he’s regained feeling in his fingers and the tips of his ears. Then he scrapes the glyph for Sending into the air, and directs the spell to Uraya, telling them that his translocation attempt has gone awry, that he is safe, but that they should search for him if he has not returned in five hours’ time. Then he sits, heavily, on the dome floor.

He need only trance for four hours, and his body will slowly shake off the trauma. He’s fine. He is alive, and sheltered. He is fine. He is _fine._

He is alone.

There might not be another sentient creature around for miles. And that sentient creature might be a dragon or a yeti or an Imperial soldier, someone or something that would crack Essek’s dome open and finish the job that the teleportation mishap started. For all he knows, there’s already something prowling around the dome’s circumference. Scenting the blood that’s still bubbling up into Essek’s mouth. Waiting.

A Scourger could gut him out here, and the snow would cover him, and no one would ever find him.

Uraya would be sorrowful. Verin would grieve. But Vurmas would carry on its work under Uraya’s leadership. Trent and Ludinus would congratulate each other on their efficiency and carry on, never sharing the knowledge that Essek allowed them to learn. The Mighty Nein –

Oh. He shouldn’t have thought of them. Because now he’s indulging in a beautiful, selfish fantasy: his friends, here in the dome with him. Jester seeing his bloodied cloak and gasping his name, dropping to her knees beside him to warm him with healing magic. Caduceus, pressing a teacup into Essek’s hands, urging him to drink slowly, to warm himself from the inside out. Beauregard giving him a punch to the shoulder, right over some of the worst bruises, and telling him _you look like shit, dude._ Caleb, assuring Essek that it wasn’t his fault, this kind of magic just goes a little awry sometimes, he wasn’t foolish, he couldn’t have prevented it, it’s not his fault that he could die out here in the silent ice, alone, _alone –_

Essek pulls his legs up against his chest and howls.

He cries in sharp, angry bursts that tear from his mouth and into the night, and he cries until his eyes are aching, he cries as he rocks back and forth with his cloak pulled tight around his body. He cries because no one else will fill the silence. He cries like he hasn’t in decades, because you do not show your heart in Dynasty politics and survive it. He cries in a way that he’s known all his life to be not right, not acceptable, not _safe._

But he isn’t safe, and nothing about this is right, and _fuck_ acceptable when he’s alone at the edge of the world and there’s no one to care.

This was always going to happen sooner or later. This breaking of his mask. He almost cried on the ship, when Caleb warmed Essek’s face in his hands and broke Essek’s core with his words. He almost cried when Jester took his hand. He almost cried again, when he teleported away after the negotiations and stood in his empty home, alone. This has been coming since Caleb kissed his forehead, since Caduceus said _we’re all here_ and since Veth said _welcome to the Mighty Nein._ It was an invitation. Not just into their friendship. It was an invitation to feel, and feel in the way the Mighty Nein do: reckless and vivid and bright.

So he lets himself feel it. All his pain and terror and shame and loneliness. Because every sob that rips at his throat is a reminder that he is only able to cry because of the Mighty Nein, because they cracked him open, because they dragged his heart to the surface. That he can cry is a sign that they are, even from a thousand miles away, still with him.

So Essek cries in a dome in the wastes of Eiselcross, and feels, oddly, less alone.

* * *

**iii.**

**he cares**

The thing is: it’s not as if Essek has never worked with others before.

He’s trained alongside fellow apprentices. He’s coordinated with Lens operatives. He’s forged political alliances – delicate, treacherous things, held together by politeness and silent threats and the promise of mutual rewards. Very occasionally, he’s worked with fellow researchers: Waccoh, sometimes. Uraya, more frequently, and more pleasantly.

It’s just that – there was never any _care_ in these partnerships. Uraya, perhaps, was the exception; in every other case, Essek’s feelings towards his allies never went beyond respect, and usually never got that far. They were using him; he used them back. They gained something, and parted ways. The fact that these arms-length alliances were, technically, _teams –_ it never mattered to him.

It matters now.

It matters, after two weeks at Vurmas and four days in the Aeorian ruins. There are miles of rock and ice above his expedition team, miles of frozen streets behind them. And Essek feels as if he has spent these few days growing an extra sense. The presence of his companions registers with him at all moments, as if each of them has tied a thread about his skull, and he can sense by the tugs at his mind how far each of them is from him.

Right now, for instance, Essek is rushing to scrawl notes on the newest artefact they’ve uncovered. Some kind of spell-storing device, as far as he and Uraya can tell, engraved with dodecahedron symbols. And as he flurries to keep his quill moving as fast as his brain – he _feels_ them. The others. Uraya, at Essek’s side, muttering theories as they run a claw along the markings that so resemble the Beacons. At the door, Xana – half-drow, with the orsine nose and tufted ears of her bugbear parent – almost invisible where she’s crammed herself behind a statue. Her position offers her a clear view, and, more importantly, a clear shot, down the hallway behind them.

On the other side of the door, leaning against the wall, is a hobgoblin tall enough that he has to stoop a little: Karsul. His eyes are half-closed, but anything that mistakes him for sleeping and enters the room will learn a lesson in regret from both Karsul's blade and his echo's. And finally, Izeth, standing with her back to Essek and Uraya, a blockade between them and anything that might make it past the others at the door. She’s of Den Omrifar, but she’s forsaken her family’s respect, forsaken any chance of consecution, forsaken the Luxon itself, by embracing instead the Knowing Mistress. She’s not Essek’s bodyguard, not officially, but she acts like it. He’s a researcher; she a champion of the goddess of knowledge. She seems to consider protecting Essek and Uraya something of a divine obligation.

They are, Essek thinks, like his satellite bodies. He feels every inch of distance between them, feels the shift in gravity whenever they move.

Like Uraya, who has started pacing up and down, gesturing wildly at the artefact. ‘The _implications_ ,’ they’re saying – gushing, really. ‘If the Aeorians knew of the Beacons, if they were familiar with their design –’

‘Then there might be a Beacon here in Aeor. Or even more than one,’ Essek finishes, and Uraya bares their teeth in an exhilarated grin, and even as Essek’s mind is racing through what this means, he’s still feeling the others. He feels the minute angling of Izeth’s head towards himself and Uraya, listening. He feels Karsul tense, mutter something – a prayer, perhaps, drawn to his lips by what he’s overheard.

And he mostly certainly feels Xana stiffen in her hiding spot, angling her crossbow down the corridor.

Essek springs upright, catching Xana’s eye. She gives a sharp nod – _danger –_ and Essek stuffs the artefact into his bag of holding, then flattens himself against the nearest wall. Uraya follows suit. Izeth ducks behind a broken stone table, still positioned between the two mages and the door. Karsul’s Echo ghosts into being.

A silence.

And then Essek hears what Xana heard: the pad of heavy footsteps against stone. A faint hissing, like a tongue flickering out to taste the air. Essek locks eyes with each of his teammates in turn, holding up a hand. _Steady._ There’s a chance that whatever-this-is will pass them by –

It doesn’t. The footsteps stop. Then they break into a run.

From her cranny behind the statue, Xana bares her teeth and fires, then flurries to reload and shoot again. There’s the _thunk_ of her bolts hitting flesh, and an awful screech that shudders the air and grates over itself, and Essek remembers what he’s read of the beasts that haunt the Aeorian halls and thinks, _oh, no-_

The Aeorian Nullifier bursts into the room like a thing possessed, head lashing from side to side, oversized hands clawing at the air. The dozen mouths in its chest open, needle teeth flashing, gnashing down. Howls tear through the room. The sound is so alien, so _wrong,_ that Essek’s whole body winces at once, and for a moment the noise fills his head until he has no room to _think –_

Karsul goes still, eyes sliding out of focus, ears flattening against his head as he faces the full blast of the screeching mouths. His blade freezes, half-raised. The Nullifier lunges at him, sinks in its teeth so deep that Essek hears Karsul’s armour snap. Then the beast turns from him and slashes into Xana, once, twice. Blood sprays across the stone.

Essek tears his component pouch open, mind flying through his list of spells. His options are limited. Casting is a gamble here in Aeor, and there’s always a chance that whatever he casts will backfire upon himself or his team. Cantrips are safest, but trying to kill something like this with a cantrip is like trying to kill a mammoth with a bunch of flowers –

Uraya, apparently, decides to risk the whims of Aeor. They dart backward, keeping themself out of the worst of the howling, and shout the incantation for a Silence spell. _Ingenious._ With the room Silenced, the gnashing mouths will be powerless –

The Nullifier’s eyes snap onto Uraya. One clawed hand lifts into the air and slashes a sharp line. The Silence spell shudders, flickers, and fades.

‘Oh.’ Uraya blinks. They glance at Essek, frowning. ‘That’s not convenient at all. Maybe we –’

They don’t get a chance to finish. Izeth, who never, _never_ leaves a clear path between the two mages and danger, is staggering back from her position. A strained sound leaves her as the Nullifier screeches. Then she whirls around, her eyes vacant and desperate, and when she looks at Uraya it’s without recognition. Only mad rage.

‘Uraya,’ Essek hisses. ‘ _Move – ’_

They’re too slow. Izeth’s sword sweeps. There’s a flash of metal, snowblind-bright, and then Uraya is reeling back with an awful whimper, blood soaking the front of their robe.

No. _No._

Those threads of awareness draw Essek’s eyes from each of his teammates to the next. Xana, hands shaking as she loads another bolt, face blank with terror as the monster looms over her. Karsul, who would normally be roaring in to protect her, still frozen. Izeth, who any moment now will realise what she has done to the person she so determinedly protects. Uraya, his _friend_ Uraya, blood-covered.

And himself. Standing with a clear line of sight to the creature.

He should play it safe. Keep to simple cantrips, things that won’t provoke Aeor into lashing back in response, things that won’t draw the Nullifier’s ire. Or he should grab Uraya and run. Xana, Karsul and Izeth are here to protect them: they know the risks, know their position demands sacrifice, if necessary. And it’s not as if he’d be condemning them to a certain death. Unlike Essek and Uraya, they will not be rendered helpless the moment this thing raises its antimagic field. Which it will, soon, now it knows there are casters about.

He should flee. Now. But these people –

These people are his.

True, he does not lower his mask around them. They would not scatter ball bearings on the floor in front of him, and he cannot imagine himself sharing dinner or a hot tub with them. They don’t hug him and give him cupcakes and parasols. They call him _Shadowhand;_ none of them would dare to punch him in the arm and call him _man._

But they are _his._

He is responsible for their lives. And he doesn’t really know them, but he knows _about_ them, just a little – knows that Izeth’s parents have not spoken to her since she made her oath to Ioun. Knows that Xana was a baker from one of the lowest-ranking dens until the memories of her previous noble life crashed into her head, knows that she still struggles to reconcile the two. He knows that Karsul is not gruff and standoffish as many assume, only shy.

Because he’s listened to them. Because around the Mighty Nein, it became his instinct to listen.

 _Come to terms with the fact that you will lose some of them,_ Verin says, in Essek’s mind. And a voice inside Essek – a voice that speaks both with the arrogance of a prodigy, and with the protective fury of a friend of the Mighty Nein – snarls back.

_Why should I?_

He wrests the crystal prism from his component pouch. He slashes a glyph into the air. He reaches for the weave of magic around him, and gathers its strands as if in imaginary hands. He holds it: the fabric of reality itself.

And then he breaks it.

The Nullifier, still half-focused on Uraya, is too slow to counter. It has time for one furious screech before the Reality Break spell seizes it, rips through it. Its body convulses, distorts – then vanishes, and reappears as Essek flings it through space and smashes it into the floor, halfway across the chamber, crashing into the stone and skidding across the ground. There’s a jagged snap as some of the teeth splinter. It rises, but its eyes are out of focus, and though it limps towards the group, the sound of the howls is quieter.

Essek waits for Aeor’s backlash. And it comes: a shower of purple butterflies filling the air above his head.

He almost laughs.

And those threads of awareness tell Essek that Xana breathes in, steadies herself, shakes off the fear and fires. Another hit; the Nullifier howls. Karsul’s eyes refocus. He charges, swings, moving in a surge so fast that his blade is a blur, with his echo a shadowy mirror of his actions. Izeth kneels to heal Uraya’s wounds. As the Nullifier limps forward, Uraya hurls a Sapping Sting in its direction, and it crashes back to the floor with a whine.

Time and space still shudder at the edges of Essek’s fingertips. He smiles. The Nullifier is terribly unlucky to have met him right now. A year ago, Essek would have felt dread, not rage. A year ago, he would have run.

But that was Essek before the Mighty Nein.

Essek looks the monster in the eyes. ‘You should not have disturbed our study time,’ he informs it, and tears reality apart.

Blackness erupts around the Nullifier, a void so empty and cold that Essek’s skin chills even from across the chamber. Shards of ice lance from the darkness and pierce the beast from every angle. They spike right through the many mouths, pinning the Nullifier to the stone. It lets out another shuddering screech – which lasts only a second before stopping so abruptly that the silence hits like a slap.

A pause. Karsul nudges the Nullifier with his sword tip. It doesn’t move.

Essek lowers his hand. For a second, the five of them are still. Then Xana’s voice breaks the silence. ‘Sir? If I may?’

Her armour’s blood-slick, and her face is pale, but there’s a grin tugging at her lips. ‘With respect, that was _fucking awesome.’_

Karsul chuckles throatily. Uraya makes a small _mm_ of assent. And Essek finds himself smiling.

‘Thank you, Xana,’ he says. Then he turns to Izeth before she can apologise. ‘It is good to have you back as yourself, Izeth. Tend to the wounded as best you can, please. We will rest and gather ourselves before moving on.’

Izeth nods, relief heavy on her face, and jogs over to Xana.

Essek watches as they settle down, passing out food while Izeth runs spells over their injuries. They are safe, these four people who were strange enough to accept posts at the edge of the world. They are safe because of him.

They’re not the Nein, and except for Uraya, they’re not his friends. But they don’t need to be. It’s enough that Essek cares.

* * *

**iv.**

**he prays (in a way)**

A problem that Essek did not anticipate about Vurmas Outpost: there is nowhere to hide on the holy days.

Back in Rosohna, when the days of reverence arrived, Essek would go to the dawn service along with every respectable Luxon follower. He'd make sure his Den saw him there, make sure to speak to his mother and the head cleric. He'd tick all the boxes that a consecuted member of a ruling den should tick.

And once he had acted that part, he would go back to his home and place a cool towel over his eyes to soothe the burn. Then he'd draw the curtains and spend the rest of the day in his study. Hiding from the celebrations in the street, hiding from the sun. Rosohna is a teeming place. Nobody ever noticed that Essek failed to spend the day in the open, searing himself beneath the sunlight.

They’ll notice here.

The Day of Radiance dawns cold and clear, the rebounding sunlight on the snow turning the entire landscape whiter than white. Appropriate, really, for one of the Luxon’s holy days. Also hellish. Essek pulls his cloak over as much of his skin as he can, and joins his men in the central thoroughfare.

The sentry posts on the spires are far emptier than he’d like. Only those who don’t worship the Luxon are manning them: Izeth, a handful of the non-drow Aurora Watch, and the few mercenaries Essek hired for this expedition. The rest of them stand bared to the whiteness, to the sun. Unhooded, unmasked, googles discarded.

Essek aches for the parasol he’s left in his office.

One of the expedition’s clerics incants the ritual words, and around him, his men bow their heads. More than one of them is murmuring, filling the silence between the cleric’s chants with their own whispered prayers. Across the thoroughfare, Karsul is kneeling, helmet clutched against his chest, eyes shut.

Essek knows a sudden, knifelike sensation. Envy. Not for the fact that Karsul’s hobgoblin skin does not burn, nor even for his faith. For his certainty. The easy comfort he must find in never questioning, in his surety that while the sunlight falls upon his back he is seen and held and loved.

It is not that Essek wants his comrades’ faith. He does not. The Essek Thelyss who believed in the Luxon’s divinity would be unrecognisable as himself. All the same, to have such trust, without reservation –

It’s not for him. But it must be pleasant.

The others will notice if he does not appear to pray. He angles his head a little up, and moves his lips silently, shaping words without giving any breath to them. ‘If I believed you were a god, none of this would have happened.’

No answer, not that Essek anticipated one. Silence is par for the course with this entity.

‘My mother helped write your scriptures,’ he says, still barely moving his lips to form the words. ‘My own mother, a thousand years ago, wrote down what she believes you to be. She says that she sees you in everything. In the rebirth of her family. In this light. If I had ever seen the world the way she does, then I would not have– '

He can’t even shape the words. Even silently. Not around so many people who would kill him if they knew what he had done to the Beacons.

‘This is a complicated way to exist, you know. Not believing in your divinity, and yet... having a voice in my head, one that sounds a great deal like my mother, telling me that I have wronged you and all those who follow you.’ _And that I have w_ _ronged the world._ ‘And now, these ruins. I go halfway across the world, away from the civilisation that worships you, and I find that you once had some kind of a presence here. It feels like a rather pointed twist of fate. And I cannot help hoping that I will find answers here, and then – _’_

And then, what?

The thought conjures up several images: himself, finding another Beacon in the ruins, bringing it to the Dynasty and becoming a hero, someone whom no one would ever suspect of having given the other Beacons away. Himself bringing his people a step closer to reuniting the Luxon, giving them hope and healing from the wound he dealt. An apology that he will never be able to speak aloud.

Himself, finding the means to fall back through time. Finding his younger self and telling him, _don’t. I beg of you. It is not worth it._

Essek swallows down a sigh. ‘It would be so easy to let myself get caught up in all this – ’ He flicks his eyes over the people arrayed around him – ‘and accept that I have been wrong, and not look for answers any more. To believe as my mother does, and know that comfort. That security. But I _cannot.’_

This is more of a rant than a prayer, at this point. Can’t be helped. And it can’t do any harm. He no more believes a god is hearing him than he did when he passed the Beacons into Ludinus’s hands.

‘I need answers. Like you, apparently. They say you wandered on a path alone, away from your kind, and now you wait for us to reach enlightenment and tell you what you are for. I don't know if that is true. I only know that if I could be content without answers, I would not be myself. I would not care for the things or the people that matter to me.'

The chant is almost over. Essek lowers his head.

‘I need to _know_ ,’ he says. ‘And if my mother’s scriptures are true, if you are waiting for answers – then you might understand that, perhaps.’

Above, clouds cover the sun. And just for a few moments, as they pass, there is gentle, painless shadow across Essek’s face.

* * *

**v.**

**he regrets**

He knows the assassins are coming for him. It’s just a shock, if not a surprise, that one of them tries to murder him in his own home.

And yes, he's been waiting for this to happen. He doesn’t teleport blithely into his tower: he casts Detect Magic and See Invisibility almost the moment he lands, scanning his study, keeping his ears pricked for any disturbance, his body poised to move.

But there’s a part of him that can’t stop seeing his tower as his haven. It’s been his refuge from the knife-edge of court politics, the place that was _his_ and where his Den and his rivals could not reach him. So when he heads down the stairs and sees the Scourger standing on the floor below, blade drawn, her silhouette lilac-outlined by the See Invisibility spell –

Something in him, something that was clinging to the idea that safety is still possible, _breaks._

Essek freezes, halfway down the steps. The Scourger tenses, sees Essek see her, and erupts into movement. Her feet pound across the floor and up the steps, and her dagger is already carving an arc whose endpoint is Essek’s throat.

But Essek is floating, and his levitation spell is directed by his thoughts. There’s no millisecond lag between Essek’s mind and his feet: he thinks _move,_ and he’s already lurching back and up the steps, throwing up a Shield as he goes. The dagger rebounds off the spell and hits air. And Essek sees in the Scourger’s curled lip that while she might have expected him to be powerful, and paranoid, she wasn’t expecting him to be _fast._

He throws out a hand towards the centre of the spiral staircase, gathers the gravity in his fingers, and condenses it into a crushing point. The Scourger snarls and reaches for a banister to grasp, to steady herself – but Essek’s stairs have no banisters, and the Gravity Sinkhole tears her from her feet and wrenches her into the air. The veins in her temple bulge as the magic rends her insides. Then the Sinkhole vanishes, and the Scourger plunges downwards through the hole at the centre of the staircase.

Hm. Essek never expected his life to be saved by his own choices in interior design.

There’s no sound of a thud from the tower floor, which means the Scourger must have cast Feather Fall. A moment later, the incantation of a Fly spell echoes from below. She’ll be after him soon, faster than she could have moved on foot. He needs to get distance, put up a barrier between them so that she can't counterspell him when he tries to teleport away. Essek spins around and flees, his float propelling him towards his laboratory door at full speed. He bolts inside, slams the door, and wrenches a packet of gold dust from his pocket. A breath-fast weave of magic, and the door is fixed in time, locked in stasis. Impregnable.

Only a couple of heartbeats later, there’s the thud of the Scourger slamming against it. Then the boom of a Knock spell. The handle twists, but the door remains immovable, and Essek’s Teleport glyph is already drawn and shimmering in the air. The magic grasps his body and wrenches him through space, leaving his tower and his would-be murderer behind.

A half-second of yawning vertigo – and then his feet are hitting the floor of his Vurmas office. No slam of magical force this time; for once, he’s right on target.

He hovers, his breath coming in tearing gasps. He waits for his lungs to steady themselves. They don’t.

Essek takes a step backwards, putting his shoulders to the wall. Then he sinks onto the floor and hugs his knees close to his chest. A Scourger. In his own home. (But he expected that.) She could have killed him. (But she didn’t.)

Essek clenches his hands into his cloak. He is fine. He is _fine._ She didn’t even so much as pull a thread of his cloak –

– but she was there in his tower, and there is no safety there for him anymore, in his decades-old refuge where the chairs have moulded to his shape and the cellar still contains a bottle of the wine he shared with Verin. He has lost his tower, his space, his shelter. This frost-worm-ridden wasteland is safer for him than his own home, and really, it’s only a question of where and how he dies now, because he will. Soon. He will die.

He is going to die. He is going to slip up and a Scourger knife will be waiting, and he is going to die.

Maybe even right now, because his lungs – which have been working in overdrive from the moment he floated down the steps and saw the waiting Scourger – are seizing up. He can’t _breathe,_ and his hands have locked in place around his legs and his body is iron-rigid, and if an assassin opened the door they would find him helpless, powerless, and Essek is _going to die –_

The world shrinks. Time stretches. Breath shudders –

And then, at last, slows.

Essek stretches his fingers, then his arms. His body is wrung and drained, as if he had spent the last ten minutes duelling the Scourger hand-to-hand rather than sitting in shutdown on the floor. He grasps the side of a bookshelf and hauls himself to his feet. Even floating feels beyond him. He manages a few steps, enough for him to sit on the side of his bed. Then he slumps down and lies still. Closes his eyes and breathes, breathes.

The room is so quiet. So full of shadows.

Essek lifts one hand, mimes the motions necessary to cast Sending. He could do it. _Jester, it’s been some time. Are you well? I still have work, if you’re willing to come to Eiselcross. I’d like to see you all._ Which would really mean, _Jester, someone has just tried to kill me, and I’m scared to be alone._

And then Jester might say, _oh, Essek. We’re kind of busy right now, okay? And you did betray us all, so maybe you should just stay where you are, on your own, because you brought all this on yourself technically, we don’t really have time to clear up your messes, you know?_

‘She wouldn’t even have enough words for that,’ he snaps at himself. Besides, she wouldn’t be so cruel. Not Jester.

He mimes the Sending again. Imagines what he’d say, if he knew this were to be his last message, and he had the courage to say it.

‘I lied to you, on the ship,’ he murmurs. ‘ _I cannot say I regret what I have done,_ I believe my words were. It seems I lied so well that I believed it. But it was a lie, all the same. I do regret. There: I have said it. I regret.’

The dread still in his stomach twists, as if just saying the words aloud might be enough to make an assassin materialise. Essek realises that he is shaking again.

‘I regret it. I regret selfishly, I confess; I regret that I have given the Assembly a blade and bared my throat to it. I regret that I am going to die so young. And that I will die alone.’ His voice cracks. ‘But I regret the rest as well. The deaths. The war. My own obsessions, and what they have wrought. I don’t think anyone could become your friend and be unmoved by these things, when you all care so fiercely.’

This is the second time he’s made a speech to someone who wasn’t listening in the past month. Which is likely a sign that his loneliness is reaching an unhealthy depth. Essek doesn’t have the energy to care.

‘And there are other things I regret. Smaller things. I regret the distance I kept between us. The things I never said. Such as: I am not consecuted. I have a younger brother whose name is Verin. I was afraid for you, when you vanished without trace for a month. I was relieved, when I learned you were alive. I think your collective sense of humour is oddly charming. I brought you the most expensive wine I had, that night. I did not want to leave. I –’

He hesitates. Caleb’s face is in his head. Essek's cheeks are warm, as if Caleb’s hands are still on them.

‘I have never been in love before,’ Essek says, into the quiet of the room.

Seconds pass.

‘And I miss you. Whatever it has led to, I am glad that you changed me.’ Essek tries to smile, like he would if his friends were listening. ‘That is another thing I regret. I regret that I will not see you, before –’

He hesitates. And in the silence, while he lies there, aching and alone –

‘Hi! We’re heading to Aeor!’

* * *

**\+ i.**

**he loves them**

‘Uraya. Could you perhaps do me a favour?’

A dangerous phrase, among people of the Dynasty. Too often met with a curling lip and a _what can I expect in return?_ But Uraya turns a jagged-toothed smile on Essek. ‘Of course. What do you need?’

Oh, Uraya. He is so glad for them, for how they never ask return favours unless they are truly in need. Essek wishes he had seen that before. That he’d had the courage to think of them as a friendbefore.

They’re walking together across the outpost, returning to their quarters after a day spent in study, identifying the artefacts from the ruins. It has been an exhilarating day - he and Uraya have jotted down enough theories to fill an entire notebook - but an exhausting one. ‘I am somewhat down to the dregs of my capabilities,’ Essek says. ‘I was wondering if you could contact the Mighty Nein for me.’

Essek _could_ Send, in truth. He has saved enough energy for a few powerful castings. But he cannot afford to waste those on Sendings, when he is reserving them for Scourgers.

(Or maybe, even after two messages from Jester, he’s still afraid to reach out and be rejected.)

Essek pushes this thought away and conjures a Minor Illusion, holding out an image of Jester’s beaming face. ‘This is the individual who usually handles communication for the Nein. Her name is Jester Lavorre. Tell her that you are with me, and that I wish to know her group’s estimated time of arrival.’

‘I can do that. Anything else?’

‘Tell them that if they are ever in dire circumstances, and need assistance, they should contact me. And… ask them to take care.’

Uraya nods, muttering under their breath and holding up fingers to count out words – with some difficulty, considering that their goblin hands make it easiest to count in multiples of four. Then they weave the spell into the air. ‘Associate of Essek, Uraya, here, sending word to keep Essek updated of your estimated arrival. Should you need emergency aid, reach out. Be careful.’

A pause. Uraya’s ears prick as the reply comes through. Whatever Jester says makes a smile tug at their lip, exposing a few fangs. ‘She believes they are about two days out, but she is not entirely certain.’

Essek’s insides jump. Just two days. Two days before he sees their faces, hears their voices. ‘Good. I shall have to make preparations for their arrival.’

‘In addition.’ There’s a flash of mischief in Uraya’s grin now. ‘She wished me to inform you – and I quote – that they like you a whole lot, and they miss you.’

Essek stops floating forward. Swallows. ‘Ah,’ he says. And then, ‘That is… good to know.’

Uraya smiles and walks on. Essek drifts beside them. ‘Did she mention anything… unusual? Anything to do with something called a Nonagon?’

‘No. Everything she said, I have told you. Is there something wrong?’

Essek stops floating and turns to them. ‘You are due to deliver reports to the court soon, yes?’

‘Indeed.’

Essek breathes in. This is something that he has been turning over in his mind ever since Jester’s first message. Saying it aloud makes it feel final. ‘There is a chance that I will not be here when you return. If so, I need you to take command of the outpost.’

A pause, while Uraya tilts their head and frowns. ‘Are you planning an excursion to the ruins? Or is this something to do with this mercenary group?’

‘The latter. When I last spoke to Jester, she told me that her group were in a dire situation, and requested that I come to meet them. And the Mighty Nein have a knack for noticing the first signs of grave danger before anyone else.’

‘So you intend to aid them?’

There's no judgement in their voice, just curiosity, but Essek knows he must choose his words carefully. He does not think Uraya would think worse of him, but he cannot risk saying something that would bring his loyalty to the Dynasty into question - justified though any suspicions would be.

‘Miss Lavorre was able to tell me little about the situation via Sending,' he says. 'I could not meet her group as she requested, not to assist with something I have no information about. But my gut tells me that the Mighty Nein's mission is vital, and if this proves to be the case once I have learned the whole story... then to protect this outpost, and our people back in the Dynasty's lands, I will do whatever I can. Which may involve joining this group for a time.’

 _A time,_ in this case, meaning _to the end of my very short life expectancy._

Uraya is still frowning. ‘I trust your judgement on this, but… why go with them yourself? Why not send a force?'

_Because I will die soon, and I do not want to die alone. Because I have done wrong, and I wish to do one thing that I know is right. Because I miss their company, miss the person I am around them, and wish to be that man again for whatever time I have left._

_Because I love them._

‘Because they requested me. And listening to the Mighty Nein has only ever benefitted the Dynasty.’ Essek hopes this sounds convincing, like something the Shadowhand would say. He isn’t sure. He’s been losing track of how the Shadowhand behaves. ‘Will you do this for me, Uraya? Will you look after the outpost, if I am not here?' _Which I will not be, soon._

Uraya looks at him for a long moment, then nods. ‘I will.’

They move on, until they have reached Uraya’s quarters. Uraya stands on tiptoe to open the door. ‘Well, goodnight. Trance peacefully, Essek.’

He won’t. But he says ‘Sleep well,’ all the same, and then realises there is more to say. For the first time since he arrived in Vurmas, he allows his Shadowhand mask to slip, and smiles. ‘Uraya. Thank you, friend.’

Essek watches Uraya’s ears twitch and their brow furrow, betraying first surprise, then confusion, and then, finally, pleasure. ‘You are most welcome,’ they say, and duck inside the door. They’re grinning again.

Essek waits for the latch to click after them, then drifts towards his own room. And then he stops, because the outpost is quiet, no one is watching him, and the sky is dark enough for staying outside to be painless. He makes his way up to one of the empty sentry posts, halfway up a spire. He turns his head to the sky and watches the stars reveal themselves, one by one.

_They like you a whole lot, and they miss you._

It might not mean much. Jester’s kindness – somehow both blithe and deliberate – was never in question. But she cannot speak for all her friends. Jester’s _we like you a whole lot_ doesn’t mean that the wary anger in Beau’s eyes has faded, or that the hurt in Caleb’s voice will not still crack the air when Essek hears him speak again.

Two days. Two days for Essek to find the courage to look the people he wronged in the eye.

A day passes. And then another. Jester Sends again, and this time her voice is thick with fear as she says _they plan to release something terrible._ Then there's another message to say that actually, it’ll be another day and a half before they arrive – which is both a reprieve and a torture.

‘Will you meet us?’ she asks. ‘Will you help us?’ 

Words gather on Essek’s tongue: _I’m coming. Hold on._ Because he is already furious with whatever has made Jester sound so frightened. Because if he goes to them, then he proves his willingness to cast everything aside for them. Maybe they will find another fragment of trust in them.

But to abandon his post for no discernible reason would attract far too much attention. If the Nein show up talking about terrible enemies where everyone can hear, that will be a different thing, but -

 _Light,_ though, he wants his friends safe. He wants them to know that he _cares -_

And then, across the thoroughfare, Xana says something to Karsul that makes him double over with laughter and thump her shoulders with one huge hand. Uraya walks past them, humming to themself, shoving books and gear into a bag in preparation for their return to Rosohna. The words Essek was about to say die before he can put breath behind them.

‘I am at the outpost southeast of the ruin,’ Essek tells Jester. ‘Come.’

He cannot leave. Even if he could find a convincing excuse. Even if he believed he could teleport to them with knifepoint accuracy, which he can't. Because, yes, Essek trusts the Nein. Yes, he believes them, however nonsensical Jester's messages might be. But Essek cannot abandon these people whose lives he's responsible for, not without knowing _why._

Essek loves the Nein too much to betray what they've taught him, and they taught him to care.

He loves the Mighty Nein, and he makes sure that no one disturbs the corner of the outpost that he's set aside for them to rest in. He loves them, and he goes through his spellbook and bookmarks pages that Caleb might be interested in. He loves them, and he smiles one evening when he thinks he sees a star glow brighter than its fellows, directly over the outpost. The wind brings to him something impossible, something he must be imagining only because he aches for it so badly: the earthy scents of the Xhorhaus garden, and the taste of Caduceus’s tea.

He loves them, and everything inside him lurches when Jester’s voice shouts _what are we looking for?_ in his head. He loves them as the signal whistles sound, and he straightens his cloak and stands for a moment before the outpost exit, breathing in, out.

He loves them, and if they hate him, he can survive it. For a hundred and twenty years, he has loved magic that has no emotion to spare for him in return. He has ached for the attention of a Den that does not see him. For the past month, he has cared for an expedition force who know him only as their efficient but distant commander.

Essek is a paradox: a cold and selfish man, yet one accustomed to loving harder than he is loved.

And while his love for the Mighty Nein is new and terrifying, it has been the spark for all the changes of the past four months. The man Essek is becoming is built upon it. It could never be shaken by something so small as him not being loved back. 

Essek straightens his cloak. He breathes in.

He is prepared for their hatred, and yet - they came. From leagues across the wilderness, they learned that Essek was here, and they came to him.

He has changed so much for the sake of a love that was met with silence, a love that had nowhere to go. A love that he was sure was unrequited. And now, it is dizzying to think what he might become for the sake of what he feels in this moment, as his friends stand outside, waiting for him: the hope of a love returned.

Essek opens the outpost door, and drifts into the light outside.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic brought to you by my adoration of the dunamancy spell list, and my desire for more Dynasty NPCs.
> 
> Title from 'Gravity' by Vienna Teng, because I can and will endlessly plunder this one song for Essek fic titles.


End file.
